As observed from a desk on the second floor of the second last building on the perimeters of a megapolis

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Monday, December 31, 2012

Children See. Children Do

Our schools and
teachers are doing a fabulous job of inculcating environmental consciousness
and awareness among children. The past few Diwalis have been vastly less
polluting while the recent Ganapati celebrations saw children urging their
parents to opt for eco-friendly clay idols and tank immersions.

All of this is
hugely commendable but unfortunately the best laid of plans come to
waste…..when a mother tosses a discarded wrapper from a moving vehicle or a father spits on the road. In a
child’s eyes, the parent is infallible so what he or she does MUST be right.
“Arrey, roads itne gande hai, toh kya pharak patda hai?” smirks the unabashed
culprit and sure enough the child echoes this very same refrain 10 years down
the line.

Now take two
steps back and survey the environment or rather our immediate environment – our
society. Do only schools and teachers have the responsibility to shape young
malleable minds? Gender
sensitivity, equal opportunities for both sexes & respect for women are
topics being flogged to death by the media. The callous police, the badly
worded laws, the terrible lighting, the pathetic nakabandis – everything was
pulled up and blamed for horrific acts of violation. But to a large extent the
family of the miscreants are just as much to blame.

Sometimes I feel women are the biggest misogynists. All of us have heard women
condemning other women for working late, for having male friends, for wearing a
skirt, for having an opinion….Or worse, we know of women bemoaning the birth of
a daughter or treating her little girl not quite in the same manner she treats
the apple of her eye a.k.a her son. Then again, there is the grossly sexist
husband and the ‘good’ Indian wife who puts up to the taunts without a murmur –
a good example being the recent Hindi movie “English Vinglish”.

Won’t you expect
the children to imbibe the very same ideas? That girls who step out on their
own deserve what they get. After all that is what mummy implied! That girls
have no business having a life beyond the kitchen or a girl simply has NO right
to say “NO” to a man - Daddy makes that abundantly clear, doesn’t he?!

We, as mothers
or fathers or neighbours or just concerned citizens have a huge responsibility
towards our future generations and our immediate family – if we want to raise
our girls to hold their heads up high and our boys to be more humble.